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The Great Tech Reset: Unpacking The Layoff Surge Of 2024
- The tech industry, once a symbol of innovation, is now facing a wave of layoffs in 2024, with over 124,000 workers affected.
- This downturn follows a period of aggressive hiring during the pandemic, compounded by inflation, higher interest rates, and economic uncertainty. Companies like Intel and Cisco are making significant cuts, while the rise of AI and outsourcing is reshaping the workforce.
- The layoffs echo the dot-com bust, but with more experienced workers now impacted. As the industry navigates this "Great Reset," resilience and adaptability are key for those affected, with opportunities in AI, data centers, and emerging fields.
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Don’t ask about work-life balance in a job interview, says ex-Google recruiter; here’s why
- When interviewing for a job, ask questions that demonstrate your eagerness to contribute and help the company grow.
- Former Google recruiter Nolan Church advises against asking about work-life balance or professional development during the interview. Questions like these can raise red flags, indicating you may not want to work hard or are focused on personal gains rather than team success.
- Instead, Church suggests asking specific questions like, "What is the company's north star for the next 12 months?" or "What traits do top performers share?" These questions show your commitment to the company's success and help you assess the work environment.
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The smart way to negotiate a job offer in today’s slowing labor market
- List your priorities beforehand: Identify your must-haves, nice-to-haves, and nonnegotiables to steer your job search and negotiations effectively.
- Gather information early: Clarify role details, including salary and work flexibility, during initial conversations to avoid late-stage surprises.
- How to counter an offer: Approach negotiations with positivity, emphasizing your value before making requests, and know that early-career professionals are expected to negotiate.
- Know how far you’re willing to go: Determine your walk-away point and maintain professionalism to avoid being perceived as difficult in a competitive market.
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Mark Zuckerberg reveals email ID he used to create his first account on Facebook
- Mark Zuckerberg recently revealed the email ID he used to create his first Facebook account on Threads.
- Responding to a humorous post about needing a .edu email to join Facebook, Zuckerberg shared that his first account was created with "[email protected]." This sparked a nostalgic conversation among users, reminiscing about their early days on the platform.
- While Zuckerberg was the fourth person to have an ID on Facebook, the first three accounts were reserved for testing and later deleted.
- Zuckerberg's post quickly gained attention, with many sharing their own memories of joining Facebook during its early years.
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The Beautiful Mess
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TBM 307: The "P" Word, Legitimacy, and Challenging Our Default Models and Frames
- The current industry climate is one of asymmetry. People—executives, investors, upper managers, and middle managers, and front-line contributors—experience very different realities and generate and circulate very different narratives.
- Tech companies, in particular, and modern companies generally use organizational structures and operating models that closely resemble military organizations.
- Hierarchical structure, chain of command, boundaries of decision-making authority, etc.
- Tech companies and militaries have two things in common: Apolitical and Meritocracy.
- Images of Organization invites readers to explore different frames of organizations. These include different frames such as Machines, Organisms, Brains, Culture, Political System, Psychic Prison, Instrument of Domination, Flux, and Transformation.
- Companies don't have a singular culture. In many ways, we are fighting each other, or at least pushing back on competing and opposing narratives.
- Despite efforts to convey otherwise, layoffs are overtly political endeavors if we define politics as the negotiation of power, influence, and competing interests within an organization.
- Mission command works through trust, shared awareness, and understanding of the commander's intent. When that contract breaks, mission command breaks.
- In short, mission command works when there is an overall sense of integrity, representation, and legitimacy in the system.
- Legitimacy is not binary—no authority structure can ever be perfectly legitimate to 100% of its constituents all the time.
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Lenny's Newsletter
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Unorthodox PM wisdom: Automating user insights, unselling job candidates, logging every decision, more | Kevin Yien (Stripe, Square, Mutiny)
- Great product managers (PMs) must also be great writers.
- Improve your writing skills by reading widely and critically, emphasizing clarity, tailoring your writing style to your audience, experimenting with cadence, and practicing regularly.
- Keep a decision log to improve your product sense by including the date, decision made, rationale and expected outcomes. Revisit decisions every 3-6 months to reflect on what worked, what didn't and why.
- Before presenting a job offer, send job candidates an “unsell email” that lists all the reasons why they may not want to work at your company.
- Automate user research to save time and gain direct insights, by using tools like User Interviews or integrating Gong with Slack.
- When facing setbacks like layoffs, separate your self-worth from your job performance and re-assess the business and skill fit.
- AI will inevitably displace jobs but its impact on future generations depends on how we shape it.
- Kevin recommends Shopify, Figma, Stripe, Twilio, and Gong as useful tools for PMs
- Kevin is the product lead for merchant experiences at Stripe, he built the restaurants business and ecosystem team at Square, and most recently was head of product and design at Mutiny.
- Find more insights from Kevin on LinkedIn or on his personal website.
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Always ask these 4 questions when you’re interviewing for a job, says ex-Google recruiter
- ‘What is the company’s north star for the next 12 months?’ This question helps you understand the company’s priorities and whether they align with your career goals.
- ‘What is the common trait of your top performers?’ Discovering the traits valued in top performers allows you to assess if your strengths and work style fit well with the company.
- ‘What’s the one thing you love most about the culture?’ This provides specific insights into the work environment and helps you decide if you would thrive there.
- ‘What problem do you want me to solve in the first 30 days?’ Understanding immediate expectations shows your eagerness to contribute and prepares you for success from day one.
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'A helper at a momo shop earns Rs 3 lakh per annum!': Bengaluru startup founder takes a jab at Cognizant's fresher pays
- A Bengaluru momo shop listing offering ₹3 lakh per annum sparked online debate when compared to Cognizant’s ₹2.52 lakh per annum for freshers.
- Amit Misra, CEO of Dazeinfo, drew attention by sharing the ad, saying, “Cognizant is offering ₹2.52 LPA for engineers! Meanwhile, a helper job at a momo shop earns ₹3 LPA!” The social media backlash highlighted the low entry-level IT salaries in costly cities like Bengaluru and Pune.
- Comments included, “Wow, Rs 2 lakhs per year? My driver makes way more than that.” Wipro’s similar packages with strict conditions also raised concerns about industry salary standards and living costs.
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The 3 New Rules Of Recruitment In An Age Of AI
- Move Beyond Traditional Credentials: Employers should move away from traditional markers like degrees and focus more on skills and potential, which increases the talent pool's depth and diversity.
- Prioritize Potential: Focus on a candidate's flexibility, learning agility, and creativity. Tools like IQ assessments can predict long-term success better than college credentials, reducing bias in hiring.
- Emphasize Soft Skills: As hard skills quickly become outdated, soft skills like creativity and emotional intelligence provide a more durable measure of a candidate's ability to adapt and innovate.
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Lenny's Newsletter
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Summary: April Dunford on product positioning, segmentation, and optimizing your sales process
- April Dunford is an expert at product positioning and wrote the book on it - Obviously Awesome.
- Positioning defines how your product is the best in the world at delivering some value that a set of companies care about.
- It's hard to measure bad or weak positioning, but you can feel a sluggishness with customers who do not understand the product.
- Most cases April has dealt with are misalignment problems within orgs and not positioning problems.
- The five key steps to figuring out your product’s positioning are: competitive alternatives, unique attributes, translate into value, target customers and the market you win.
- An early-stage company trying to find PMF does not need to nail positioning as it involves a lot of validation of the product hypothesis first.
- Segmentation involves things like firmographics, while personas are created to identify who the internal champion is for prospective buyers.
- Positioning is a precursor to messaging, which is the text on the homepage. Branding is the differentiation for the brand to be distinct.
- April has worked hands-on with over 200 companies on positioning, including Google, IBM, Postman, and Epic Games.
- April helped Help Scout figure out its differentiation, which they found to be their philosophy of customer service.
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Lenny's Newsletter
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Summary: AI and product management | Marily Nika (Meta, Google)
- Marily Nika, an AI Product Lead, suggests that all product managers (PMs) will eventually have to be AI PMs in the future to represent AI-centric views even in transforming their career.
- Nika recommends using AI and machine learning with caution, only after due consideration of the problems to be solved by the products and not for mere MVPs. Further, companies should look at sourcing AI tools directly related to their needs and leverage existing data before developing their own models.
- Moreover, Nika advises that PMs need to become comfortable working with research scientists to get ahead in AI PM roles, with skills such as communication, data analysis and collaboration to excel in corporate settings.
- AutoML, Google's no-code AI tool, reflects the move to disseminating AI and machine learning in more accessible ways.
- The article highlights current developments in the AI field and offers recommendations on staying informed about AI developments, usage of ChatGPT, and building AI-enhanced ideas.
- The article also notes the changing demands in PMs on adopting varying design and implementation skills in areas like machine learning algorithms, AI solutions and provides some suggestions on where to learn these skills.
- Nika especially highlights that PMs must focus on building skill sets to understand underlying mechanisms and should not rely solely on AI and machine learning to augment their capabilities
- PMs should also seek training to become more familiar with communicating with data scientists and making strategic decisions while dealing with uncertainty associated with AI and the product development lifecycle.
- In general, the article provides readers with tips on how to launch an AI-driven product by asking themselves if there is a problem that needs to be solved in a smart way while making sure to start from the problem itself.
- Apart from the technical aspects, the article also emphasizes the importance of creating one's own course that reflects the experience and knowledge of the developer and the need to stay updated on new developments in the AI field.
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Lenny's Newsletter
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Summary: Lessons from working with 600+ YC startups | Gustaf Alströmer (Y Combinator, Airbnb)
- Lessons from working with over 600 startups at Y Combinator shared by Gustaf Alströmer,
- Companies fail when they don't find 'product-market fit' stemmed from not talking to users,
- Early success can cause neglect of customer input driven by external validation and investments,
- Founders fear users will dislike their product, but usually users are simply indifferent toward it,
- Talk to your users, learn what they want, and create products that address their needs.
- Successful founders understand what failure looks like; they have excellent communication skills, good at storytelling, figure out how to talk to users and make progress,
- Successful founders are determined to win, have both confidence and humility, and focus on execution instead of strategy pre-product market fit,
- YC is good at predicting what failure looks like, and the most helpful indicator is progress made during weekly office hours,
- YC works to help startups find focus and product-market fit to prevent failure and advises against acts of desperation,
- Climate tech is a lucrative market with substantial economic incentives and cutting-edge technological innovations,
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Lenny's Newsletter
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Time management techniques that actually work
- Using your calendar for to-dos is a better approach than adding to-dos to an app.
- If a task takes less than two minutes, do it immediately instead of adding it to the to-do list.
- Creating a waiting for list ensures you don't drop the ball when someone else is delaying a task you need.
- Pick 1-3 things you must accomplish each day before opening your to-do list.
- Creating Deep Work time allows for focused, uninterrupted, and valuable cognitive processing.
- Saying No is important. If you overcommit, your productivity significantly reduces.
- Protect work async because it improves efficiency by pivoting meeting requests to email conversations.
- Get assistance for low-impact work by hiring virtual assistants who can take care of smaller tasks.
- Scheduling meetings starting from later in the day helps to save deep work time in the morning.
- Use 'Do Not Disturb' mode to eliminate distractions during deep work time.
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Minis
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Thousands of Corporate Secrets Were Left Exposed. This Guy Found Them All
- Since 2021, security researcher Bill Demirkapi has identified over 15,000 developer secrets, including passwords and API keys, and exposed vulnerabilities on 66,000 websites using unconventional data sources.
- His efforts, revealed at Defcon, uncovered sensitive data from entities such as Nebraska’s Supreme Court, Stanford University, and OpenAI customers. Demirkapi’s methods involve scanning massive data repositories like VirusTotal for leaked credentials and dangling domains.
- While Demirkapi alerted some companies, limitations exist in broader reporting mechanisms, particularly with platforms like GitHub and Amazon Web Services. His work highlights the need for innovative strategies to enhance online security.
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Lenny's Newsletter
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Summary: The ultimate guide to adding a PLG motion | Hila Qu (Reforge, GitLab)
- PLG (Product-led Growth) is popular due to the shift from sales-driven B2B business models to user-focused, try-before-you-buy tactics.
- PLG is perfect for lowering the barrier for more people to try the product and broaden the reach, while sales motion is for a very targeted list of big customers.
- The first step to adding a PLG motion to a B2B company is to either have a free product, free trial, some sort of low barrier entry for anyone who stumbles upon the product to give it a try.
- PLG is a complete motion that requires commitment and a well-thought-out roadmap, potentially spanning a year or more.
- Companies that want to do PLG but lack usage data are setting themselves up for failure.
- Not every company needs to add a PLG piece, it’s a spectrum. However, the majority of B2B software companies fall somewhere in the middle of this spectrum and can benefit from integrating elements of PLG into their growth strategy.
- In terms of tool recommendations for setting up an initial stack for product-led growth, Hila Qu mentions several key pieces: infrastructure tools, product analytics tools, experimentation tools, lifecycle marketing tools, data enrichment tools, onboarding tools, and conversion tools.
- The most critical role for an MVP PLG team is the growth PM (Product Manager) who leads the team.
- PLG is a key asset in a product-led growth strategy, and a well-structured data infrastructure can ensure this asset is leveraged effectively.
- To move from just a PLG team to a PLG organization, it is crucial to determine the metrics that each team will own.
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